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What we can learn from Urban Congo

Princeton Urban Congo is a joke dance group made up of members from the Princeton Men’s Swim and Dive Team. Their most recent performance was at Saturday’s eXpressions show. A video of one of their performances can be viewed online. Everything about the group from their name to their costumes to the way they dance is offensive and perpetuates stereotypes of Africans.

After a strongly negative social media reaction to their performance at the eXpressions dance show, the president of Urban Congo, Michael Hauss ’16, apologized, saying, “Though we did not intend to denigrate other cultures, we realize that this fact does not absolve us in the least. We created something that was inexcusably offensive, and we appreciate all those who called attention to our mistake.” The group also took down their Facebook page and videos.

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Although I appreciate Hauss’ apology, I don’t think sweeping it under the rug is the right way forward. I believe that it is important to examine the reasons why the group was found to be so offensive and talk about and understand these reasons. Otherwise, we run the risk of repeating the mistake.

The name of the group is fundamentally offensive. First of all, by naming itself “Congo” it is clearly referring to one of two African countries. This means that all the rest of the group's actions must be put into that context. The group members have contextualized their dance pieces as being references to Africa and African cultures.

The second part of the name “Urban” is a little bit more subtle. But, as Republican strategist Lee Atwater is infamously known for saying, direct racism “backfires,” so people, especially politicians, use coded racial language instead, such as substituting “urban” for “black.” It is an easy way to make points and arguments that would be censored today for being racist. With this information in mind, it is clear that the group is openly referencing black people and Africans from the very start with that name.

Even if there were still doubts over the name of the group, its performance confirms the group’s racial mockery. Urban Congo members wear body paint and loincloths over their swim team speedos. These costumes are derived from Western stereotypes of indigenous African clothing. The members also dance in a way that is clearly supposed to represent those same Western stereotypes. Their dance also includes the picking up and placing of objects in a pantomime of indigenous peoples interacting with an altar.

The problem with Urban Congo is that they reduce an entire range of diverse cultures into a very basic, cartoonish, mocking facsimile of themselves. This in turn contributes to the larger issue of the lack of nuance in the way people regard African cultures.

The group's intention in doing this was to go for cheap laughs. You only have to look at the reaction of the audience to understand that. First the group reduces a complex and beautiful range of cultures into one narrow idea, taken from wrongful Western stereotypes. Then it presents that culture to the audience to be laughed at. When we look at this, especially in the context of the historical relationship between the West and Africa, it should not be difficult to see why this is so hurtful to African students. Personally, as an African student, I was not surprised to see this train wreck go down, because it is indicative of the larger disregard with which people treat African cultures. However, I was extremely hurt to see it happen here and to see Princeton students happily partaking in it.

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Moving forward, I hope we can all try and think more about both the intentions of our actions and the effects they have on others. Let’s have more care in the way we depict cultures. Let’s avoid reducing them to figures of ridicule just for a couple of giggles at a dance show.

Zeena Mubarak is a sophomore from Fairfax, Va. She can be reached at zmubarak@princeton.edu.

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